Tag Archives: Stanford Financial Group

On Thursday March 5th 2009 the Honorable David C Godbey, US District Judge in Dallas, passed an order (Scribd | PDF) that Stanford accounts with a balance below $250,000 not linked to suspected fraud should be released. Fox News have reported the story, citing an email from J Mark Brewer as follows:

J. Mark Brewer, the Houston attorney who filed suit against the SEC in this matter, was pleased with this latest development; however he believes the SEC is still overstepping its boundaries.

“I firmly believe that these individuals’ accounts should never have been frozen in the first place and many people have suffered huge damages as a result of this unprecedented, over-reaching action by the SEC,” Brewer said in an email to FOX Business correspondent Adam Shapiro. “The $250,000 threshold requested by the SEC and approved by the attached order is an unfair and arbitrary number, especially considering that many of these accounts are retirement accounts on which people depend.”

This is good news for all affected! One can only hope that J Mark Brewer is equally concerned about the welfare of his former bookshop employees here in the UK whose wages he has frozen and whose pension contributions have gone AWOL – retirement money that they too are depending on. Perhaps someone from Fox News would like to ask Mr Brewer some searching questions about his rather innovative UK business practices? Visit SPCK/SSG: News, Notes & Info to find out more: https://spckssg.wordpress.com. Thank you.

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Fox Business News presents the People’s Hero, Mark Brewer, Principal of Brewer and Pritchard PC, pursuing the SEC on behalf of 30,000 innocent investors. Why? Because, irony of ironies, Mark’s frozen assets at Stanford Financial include his retirement account: “I just had a retirement account there, the government grabbed it,” he says.

I’ve contacted Fox News and asked them to interview Mark about the former SPCK/SSG Booksellers’ missing pension contributions. I leave it to you to imagine the questions and answers…

For the record: if I believed that Mark Brewer was genuinely acting in the public interest and out of concern for the 30,000 or so investors who have lost out in the Stanford Financial scandal then I would gladly applaud. Unfortunately, I’ve seen the way he and his brother Philip W Brewer treat people and do business; and I think the only reward those 30,000 people will ever reap from Mark Brewer’s advocacy will be massive legal bills. If you, gentle reader, are one of those investors, beware: do not trust this man.

Health Warning: Don’t watch this if you’ve just eaten; or if you do, have a paper bag or other suitable receptacle handy: you’ll need it. Partial transcript below.

J Mark Brewer, The People's Hero

Partial Transcript:

All we’re asking for is that the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment of the constitution be observed, and that the government not just make such a broad sweeping dragnet approach that takes all the investment, the innocent investment, account holders, takes their money and locks it up along with the alleged bad guys — look, I don’t know whether Mr. Stanford and his his people are as guilty as they say they are or not, but what I do know is that I just had a retirement account there, the government grabbed it, and even the receiver admits in his press release that it’s not proper for all of the accounts to be frozen. They’re all held by the way at Pershing, they’re not even held at Stanford.

And all we’re asking for from you, Mark, is that you make four or five amendments to your behaviour here in the UK:

Full text of J Mark Brewer’s complaint against the Securities and Exchange Commission below, courtesy of Scribd. Unlike the former SPCK/SSG employees’ pension contributions, wages and Mr Brewer’s other outstanding debts, it’s unlikely to go missing, but just in case I’ve saved it as a pdf here. Let’s take a closer look at some of his concerns:

4. As of the filing of this complaint, the financial system in the United States of America is in worse condition than at any time since the Great Depression, a twelve-year “event” that is considered by some to have ended only by the onset of the second World War. Given this level of economic turmoil, an inability to access money or basic information about money, an interruption by the government itself of access to information about bank and securities accounts generates investor fear – not confidence. This is an inconsolable fear to even the most sanguine investor. The defendants did just that: acting under color of law, defendants seized plaintiff’s accounts, surrounded the premises of the financial institution through which those accounts were purchased and did so without any notice to plaintiff, opportunity for a hearing or other due process of law.

Amen to all that, Mark: “an inability to access money or basic information about money… generates investor fear – not confidence. This is an inconsolable fear…” So what effect do you imagine the inability to access information about their pension funds — information that you, Mr J Mark Brewer, are intentionally withholding — is having upon your former employees? And what of their wages — wages that you, Mr J Mark Brewer, are intentionally withholding?

And what of your brother Philip’s advice to staff at Durham Cathedral Bookshop on how to deal with unpaid suppliers pursuing payments due? “When and if asked about billing, tell them they should process that at vendor-accounts, as you are not aware of how they are paying old invoices, etc. they will need to chase Saint Stephen the Great Trust as they have been doing.” Ah yes, the gift of clear information, generously bestowed to instil confidence…

Can’t help thinking it’s a shame the SEC weren’t on duty in Exeter to surround the former bookshop when you sold it without any notice to SPCK, with no opportunity for a hearing and in flagrant disregard for the Covenant you signed, let alone any due process of law. Incidentally, I’m fascinated by that little word ‘Trust’ that you and Phil are so fond of tacking onto the end of ‘St Stephen the Great’ — I know American English and British English aren’t the same language; I guess I hadn’t realised quite how far apart they’d drifted… but of course, you Brewers are a law unto yourselves, aren’t you? One rule for you, another for everyone else. Not sure what “color of law” you work under, Mark, but it sure looks shady to me.

6. The ex parte Presidents’ Day Orders are a violation of the fundamental rights of due process of the plaintiff and are an illegal seizure of his accounts. The defendants procured and then executed the Presidents’ Day Orders at issue from a court without jurisdiction to do so and without possessing a properly authorized or statutory basis. In this respect and as alleged herein, the defendants acted under color of law in violation of the rights of the plaintiff:

A. The Presidents’ Day Orders which were used to seize assets of plaintiff and were signed on a federal holiday known as “Presidents’ Day.” The orders were signed by a U. S. District Judge in which neither this plaintiff nor the defendants in the SEC case reside, do business or are subject to proper venue. The orders were signed without notice to anyone and without an opportunity to be heard by anyone.

Now that, Mark, coming from the man who attempted to take a UK company through the USA bankruptcy courts, really takes the biscuit; and since your grasp of the English language seems, shall we say, a tad limited at times, here, especially for you, is an explanation of the phrase ‘takes the biscuit’, courtesy of the BBC. Enjoy; and next time you take a biscuit, try not to let it break off in your tea: makes a terrible mess in the cup — oops, too late:

21. The Presidents’ Day Orders scarcely mention the investors whose money has been taken from them – other than to say that the seizure is “to prevent waste and dissipation of the assets of Defendants to the detriment of the investors.” Nothing requires Mr. Janvey to provide the aggrieved investors with information or account statements – much less customer service. The investors are simply left wondering when or if they will ever be able to recover anything they once had.

And since when, Mark, have you taken care to mention your aggrieved former employees and suppliers whose money and stock has been taken from them? Is this why you’ve been shuffling the stock around the shops, “to prevent waste and dissipation of the assets” of your suppliers? Since when have you supplied your former employees or suppliers with information? Account statements? Customer service? All of them “are simply left wondering when or if they will ever be able to recover anything they once had.”

28. Conclusion. The defendants, both the institutions and the individuals, may well be every bit as “bad” the SEC claims. Quite likely, the defendants’ allegations will never see the light of day in any courtroom as the only parties which could have defended themselves have been stripped of the ability to hire or pay for legal counsel. Even if it turns out otherwise, this is a clear case of the cure being far worse than the supposed illness. Moreover, these allegations can hardly justify the seizure of plaintiff’s accounts which are held at Pershing LLC. In its stated motivation to save the investors and protect their investments, the SEC’s heavy-handed approach already has killed the goose that laid the eggs: Stanford is finished forever and Pershing LLC is purportedly prohibited by law from allowing plaintiff to access his accounts or even get information concerning them. Far from preventing the “dissipation” of the plaintiff’s assets, the SEC has seized them, doing exactly what it accuses Stanford of doing.

Let’s rephrase that a touch:

Perhaps some aspects of the SPCK bookshop business were every bit as “bad” as you’ve claimed at various points in your attempts to excuse your abominable management practices. But be that as it may, if it were left to you, quite likely, your former employees’ grievances would never see the light of day in any courtroom because you’d have stripped them of the ability to hire or pay for legal counsel; and again, if it were left to you, any evidence the courts might need would be unavailable because you’d have restricted it with bogus ‘Cease and Desist’ threats. Even if it turns out otherwise, this is a clear case of the cure being far worse than the supposed illness. Moreover, whatever allegations you might make can hardly justify your outrageous treatment of your staff or your underhanded sale of the Exeter shop; in your stated motivation “to salvage what remains of the business of the bookshops” your heavy handed approach already has killed the goose that laid the eggs: the SPCK bookshops look to be finished forever and you appear unwilling to allow former employees or suppliers to access their money or stock or even get information concerning them. Far from preventing the “dissipation” of the bookshops’ assets, you have seized them, doing exactly what you accuse the SEC of doing.

I hope you’re getting the message, Mark. How does it feel to be at the mercy of those so much more powerful than yourself — those who have the ability to slam doors in your face and leave you standing out in the cold, knowing that assets that rightly belong to you are just the other side of those doors?

I guess it’s not as bad for you: you have your own pet law firm and a team of tame attorneys to do your bidding; you have a brother with a B&B in Bountiful who can put you up if push comes to shove. But the people whose livelihoods you’ve ruined in much the same way as you make out the SEC is ruining yours — for many of them, it was everything they had.

Lent is upon us, Mark; it’s time to repent: to turn around, to do the right thing, to stop fighting for your own rights and to respond to the needs of those you’ve short-changed.

J Mark Brewer, the Texas attorney who deprived SPCK’s booksellers of their livelihoods, who drove one man to his death, who doesn’t pay his suppliers, who together with his brother Philip has been systematically shuffling stock from shop to shop until no one knows who owns what or which way’s up, who faked a bankruptcy filing in the USA courts in an attempt to evade his creditors and who sold a shop for half a million when he thought no one was looking, has had his assets frozen in the USA’s Stanford Financial fiasco.

If it weren’t for all the others caught up in the Stanford mess, it would be truly comical: J Mark Brewer, Texas Bully Boy who beats up British Booksellers v/s Big Guys and Unknown Opponents.

In many ways it’s a mirror image of the situation that he and his brother Philip W Brewer have created here in the UK: one moment we’re up against SSGCT, then it’s SSG LLC — which turned out to be a complete Brewer fabrication — then suddenly we’re facing multiple trading identities in the guise of ENC, Durham Shop Management, Chichester Shop Management and Third Space Books, which mysteriously seems to embrace them all but can’t be pinned down to a specific location; and no one knows who was employed by whom, let alone where their pension contributions went…

I’ll be taking a closer look at Mark’s list of complaints later and their parallels with the SPCK/SSG situation: it all looks eerily familiar; but for now, a couple of questions for him:

HOW DOES IT FEEL, MARK, WHEN YOUR OPPONENTS WON’T SHOW THEIR FACES?

WHAT’S IT LIKE, MARK, TO BE A SLIPPERY FISH WHO’S BEEN GIVEN THE SLIP?

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